I'm a theater lover. I am happiest when I am sitting in a theater. Or talking about theater. Or reading about theater. Or now blogging about it. If you’re reading this, you're probably a theater lover too and I hope you’ll keep me company as I blog my way through each Broadway season.

April 28, 2018

...And We're Off Into Awards Season 2018

Let the games begin.The
spring theater season officially closed Thursday night with the opening of The
Iceman Cometh, which means the Tony nominators will be toting up their scorecards
this weekend, gather on Monday to vote and then announce this year's nominees
for Broadway's top prizes on Tuesday, ushering in five weeks of genteel, but still
fierce, campaigning.

But awards season actually began at the beginning of April when the nominations were announced for the Lucille Lortel Awards, which
honor off-Broadway shows. Then two weeks later, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
was given to the young playwright Martyna Majok for Cost of Living, her terrific
drama about people living with disabilities (click here to read my review of that
play and here to read a recent interview I did with the playwright).

Two days after that came the nominations from the Drama
League. And this past week the Outer Critics Circle and the Drama Desk announced theirs.Parsing all those lists and figuring out
which shows in this somewhat lackluster season got the biggest embrace—and
which the sharpest cold shoulders—could make a person cross-eyed.

Heck, even laying out who runs each group and which kinds of
shows they honor is a challenge.Luckily, "Playing for Prizes:
America's Award for Best Drama and Best Musical," a nifty little book by Tim
Donahue that I've been reading, does that hard work and so I don't have to (if you're interested, you can check it out by clicking here).

And if you're as crazy about this stuff, as I am, you also can
keep track of the odds for this year's Tony race on the Gold Derby website,
where a foolhardy bunch of theater fanatics (including me) try to handicap the
winners by clicking here.

Meanwhile, as a literal card-carrying member of the Outer Critics Circle, I'm just
going to list all the OCC nominees (some of which I enthusiastically endorse,
others which I'm resignedly going along with) and then I'm going to try to
catch up with the shows I still haven't seen so I can improve my odds on Gold
Derby:

OUTSTANDING NEW BROADWAY PLAY
The Children
Farinelli and the King
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Junk

OUTSTANDING SET DESIGN(Play or
Musical)
Miriam Buether Three Tall Women
Myung Hee Cho In the Body of the World
Christine Jones Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Michael Yeargan My Fair Lady
David Zinn SpongeBob SquarePants

OUTSTANDING COSTUME DESIGN(Play or
Musical)
Katrina Lindsay Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Clint Ramos Once on This Island
Paloma Young Time and the Conways
David Zinn SpongeBob SquarePants
Catherine Zuber My Fair Lady

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A PLAY
Sean Carvajal Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train
Andrew Garfield Angels in America
Tom Hollander Travesties
Gregg Mozgala Cost of Living
Michael Urie The Government Inspector

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A PLAY
MaameYaa Boafo School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play
Jessica Hecht Admissions
Glenda Jackson Three Tall Women
Lauren Ridloff Children of a Lesser God
Katy Sullivan Cost of Living